What Was on the Menu at the Last Supper?

While many look forward to Easter Sunday and observe Good Friday, Holy Thursday (or Maundy Thursday) is an equally important date. It commemorates the day Jesus and his Apostles are said to have sat down to the Last Supper. The Bible discusses what happened during this dinner at length but the answer one question remains uncertain: What exactly did Jesus and his twelve dining companions eat during this historical occasion?

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Unfortunately, there's no definitive answer. However, likely menu items can be gleaned from historical and even artistic record. Scripture, of course, gives us the first clue: Bread (unleavened) and wine were present at the Last Supper. Jesus is said to have passed both around the table, telling his Apostles that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood. This is the scriptural origin of communion.

Jesus also instructs the Apostles to make preparations for the Passover, including sacrificing and preparing the Passover Lamb. But was lamb indeed on the menu? It's up for debate. As explained in this Slate article, some biblical scholars believe that the "lamb" is actually a symbol for Jesus, who the next day would become the sacrificial "Lamb of God." (It should also be noted that lamb and any other meat was food for the rich, which Jesus and his disciples were not.) According to a piece in the Biblical Archaeology Review, while there were many parallels to a typical Seder, the meal also simply had many characteristics of a typical Jewish meal. Pope Benedict XV agrees. As reported by Asia News, in 2007 he announced that Jesus celebrated the Passover sans lamb. He theorized that the Last Supper took place before the ritual sacrifice of the lambs and therefore Jesus himself became the lamb to be sacrificed.

So if this is the case, what could have been part of the menu? For that we can look to what was typically eaten in mid-spring Israel. Back to the Bible! In Deuteronomy, it is written that "the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity." Out of these items - all native to the region in which Jesus would have been living - what could have been on the table? Wheat and barley might have been on the table, depending on the harvest from the year before (the grains would not have been ready to harvest at the time of the Last Supper, so any grain present would have had to last through the winter). Grapes were also not yet in season, but wine was present. Figs could have been eaten dried. Pomegranates, though, are a fall fruit and therefore would not likely have been present. However, olive oil and honey would have been at the ready.

Biblical scripture is not the only source that comes into play when discussing the food eaten at the Last Supper. Art is also an element that informs a theory. In Peru, there is a historical tradition of guinea pigs as creatures of sacrifice (they are also local delicacies). Thus, it is not uncommon to see guinea pig, or cuy, depicted as the centerpiece roast in images of the Supper painted in Peruvian churches.

Of course the most famous depiction of the Last Supper is that of Leonardo DiVinci. As reported in The Food Section, a 2008 article published in Gastronomica written by John Varriano suggested that after the 1997 restoration of the painting revealed images of plates of grilled eel with orange slices. But this could have been a whim of the artist who, Varriano writes, is seen by his own preserved grocery lists from the 1400s to have shopped for "bread, eels, and apricots."